Welcome to ‘Connect for Success’, our change programme that’s all about making it easier for us to deliver what’s needed of us.
Why we need a change programme
Years of multi-million pound budget cuts make it more and more difficult for councils to deliver services and support their communities. We have to develop new ways of working together that make it easier to get things done.
What it means for employees
In brief, it means that we share knowledge, effort and resources to do the best job possible for and with our communities.
You can find examples below of how this could work in practice day to day.
Pippa MilnePlease do take time to decide how this can all work for you. Have a look at the principles behind the programme, look at the examples of what it means in action, and see from there how it can support you. Employees of this council do amazing work every day for our communities. ‘Connect for Success’ is about supporting you – make it work for you.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to developing the name ‘Connect for Success’.
Connect – to help make the most of what we have, the change programme is about connecting people through technology, connecting services in delivering change and services, connecting information held by different council services, and connecting with communities.
Success – we can, and are achieving success for the area, and we are dealing with the challenges we face. Every one of us has our own challenges to overcome and successes to achieve for the council. It’s increasingly difficult to do that. The change programme in brief is about changing how we work to support us all in delivering what’s needed of us.
1. One Council One Place Approach
This principle is about partnership – working with other public sector agencies and our communities to get the most from Argyll and Bute’s resources.
2. Purpose and Mission Focus
Priorities – Priorities of Argyll and Bute Council 2017 – 2022 (argyll-bute.gov.uk)
The council can’t do everything we would like to do because of limited resources. This principle is about matching decisions about what we do to the council’s overall vision.
3. Employee empowerment
Our employees have great skills and experience. We want to make it easier for you to put them into effective action.
4. Data and evidence driven decision making
We will use customer insight to do more of what works, and change what doesn’t.
5. Learning Council
We use lessons from previous experience to develop and improve how we work.
6. Agile
We have decision-making and related processes that make it easy to put effective change into action.
7. Maximise opportunities that technology offer
We use technology to enable, support and progress our work.
Here are just some examples of actions being taken to help Connect for Success
Reducing bureaucracy
One system to replace three: we are replacing MyView, My Options and Talentlink with one system for them all; this means you only need to log in once, and only be familiar with one system. Look out for the new system in Summer 2024.
Making more ‘doing’ time: to reduce the number of plans/strategies produced in the council, as a first step take an A4 outline proposal for a new strategy/plan to ELT (Executive Leadership Team) for a chat about how work needed on it could be reduced, possibly by linking with work being done in other services.
Recruitment process: to make it easier to recruit, we are making changes to the process such as reducing the number of approvals needed to advertise a job and removing the need to advertise for 3-weeks.
One council, one place
Themes not teams – this catchphrase comes from the aim of looking beyond our own teams when we are making changes, to include other council teams who would have a contribution to make.
We have set up a Community Engagement Group to produce guidance setting out expectations for working with our communities in designing services.
The Our Modern Workspace project takes a place-based approach by considering the needs of local areas, and partner organisations, as well as those of the council, in assessing the future of council buildings.
Data and evidence-driven decision making
We have set up a Data Group to produce customer insight from data across the council that we can use to develop services.